BUSSINESS INFORMATION

DUBAI: India and Kuwait have reached an agreement on resolving a dispute on air traffic rights, over which the gulf state had threatened to stop Indian national carriers flying there from today. Just before the expiry of the deadline, an MoU was signed last night by the civil aviation authorities of the two countries in Kuwait city after a marathon negotiations lasting three days, Indian ambassador to Kuwait M Ganapthi said.

Ganapthi said after the MoU was signed that the flight services between the two countries will continue freely and unhindered, much to the benefit of the thousands of passengers who were fearing a disruptions in services between the two countries. He said the talks were held in a friendly and cordial atmosphere and the final result shows the depth of the relations between the two countries. "From the passenger and public view point, the MoU has been a big success," he added.

The points in agreement include additional 4,000 seat taking the total to 12,000 seats in each directions, but the fifth freedom destinations will apply to the earlier 8,000 seats. India has agreed to allow Kuwait carriers to operate flights to Hyderabad, Kolkata (both with immediate effect) and Bangalore (from the winter 2008 schedule).

The spat began when Kuwait decided to stop Indian carriers from flying into the country from July 1. In a bid to break the deadlock, a high-level Indian delegation comprising civil aviation ministry joint secretary R K Singh and representatives of A-I and IA arrived in Kuwait on Thursday and since then talks continued.

The agreement, reached between the Kuwait and Indian governments, would be a relief to thousands of passengers, booked on both Indian and Kuwait airlines, ending the uncertainty over their travel plans. The Indian delegation left for the country early today. Meanwhile, Air India regional director Freddie Vaz and Indian regional director Abhay Pathak have both said they would operate the flights from Kuwait as scheduled.

MAKASSAR, Indonesia (Reuters) - Part of the tail of an Indonesian plane that disappeared with 102 people on board 10 days ago has been found in the sea off Sulawesi island, an air base commander said on Thursday.
Police said later that search teams had found a woman's body floating in the same general area.

The ill-fated Adam Air Boeing 737-400 was heading from Surabaya in Central Java to Manado in northern Sulawesi when it vanished in bad weather on January 1.
"This morning I announced that there has been a finding of a part of Adam Air. What was found was the right tail's stabiliser number 65C25746-76. This thing was found by a fisherman in Pare Pare," said Eddy Suyanto, who has been co-ordinating search efforts from an air base in the South Sulawesi capital, Makassar.

"This object has the same number as the Boeing catalogue," he told reporters, displaying the slightly scratched white stabiliser found on Wednesday.
A police official told Reuters that a female body had been recovered from the sea.
"She had short black hair. She wore green attire, long brown trousers. She had typical dark Asian skin," police official Simon Benteng said by telephone from Pare Pare, a seaside town about 100 km (60 miles) north of Makassar.

He estimated that the woman was in her 30s and said neither her identity nor whether she was a passenger on the Adam Air plane had been confirmed
Pare Pare is about 150 km (90 miles) south of Mamuju in west Sulawesi, the main focus of the hunt since Monday when Indonesian ships detected large metal objects deep on the sea bed.
A U.S. navy oceanographic ship, the USNS Mary Sears, joined the search effort earlier but has yet to shed light on whether the metal objects are wreckage.

"Up until now I have not received any reports from Mary Sears," Suyanto said.
Moekhlas Sidik, commander of the navy's eastern fleet, had said on Wednesday the Mary Sears confirmed the findings of metal objects at three points and was focussing on one of the sites.

The objects lay at a depth of 1,700 metres (5,600 feet) and, while the U.S. vessel could map the sea bed, the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office said it had its limits.
"In shallow water that's not too difficult to do, in less than 500 metres. Any deeper ... and it will be very difficult for our ship to identify any parts, especially if they're small," Mark Jarrett, deputy director of operations for the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office, told Reuters in Washington.
(Additional reporting by Mita Valina Liem in Jakarta)

MAKASSAR, Indonesia - Two Indonesian Air Force helicopters will join the search to locate a missing airliner a week after it vanished in bad weather with 102 aboard, a military spokesman said on Monday.
The hunt was focussed on the Bone Strait between the two southern arms of Sulawesi island and the onshore areas of western Sulawesi, Captain Mulyadi said in Makassar, the island's largest city, from where search efforts are being coordinated.
The USNS Mary Sears, a U.S. ship with sonar capability and the ability to detect metal underwater, will arrive on Tuesday to join the search, which already included at least four ships, two Indonesian air force planes, two helicopters, and thousands of troops and police on the ground.
The hunt for the 17-year-old Boeing 737-400 operated by Indonesian budget airline Adam Air has been hampered by rain, clouds and wind, with the area's jungle-covered mountains also making it difficult to spot things from the air.
The region lacks roads and communications are often poor.

Over the weekend, passengers' relatives waiting in Makassar for news confronted Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla and called for more to be done